New Amsterdam - One Shots
by Fik Freak
Summary: This is going to be a compilation of various one shots for the TV show New Amsterdam. Some will be AUs, some will not. If you know me some will be angsty, maybe even a little NSFW smutty. But, all will focus on the Sharpwin (Max Goodwin/Helen Sharpe) relationship in some way. Enjoy!
1. Chapter 1

Max

I don't know why I can't look away. Stop myself from gazing at her lips instead of her eyes. Watching the way they pucker and pout to form those sophisticated medical words that we all initially stumbled over in medical school, but finally mastered by residency. The bronze gloss slicked across them stealing my focus more often than not.

She's my doctor. I'm her boss. I'm a married man. Kind of. With Georgia leaving me, absconding away to Connecticut with our baby, I have no way of knowing where our relationship stands. And now my heart wanders, wonders, rapidly bruising an anxious rhythm against my chest…for another. A woman who is not my wife.

Her dark eyebrows raise high on her forehead, signaling that she's waiting for some verbal response from me. "Did you hear what I said, Max?"

"Huh? Yeah. Yes, I did."

"Remission. For now. That's good news."

"Yes, Helen, I know that."

"Then why aren't you smiling?"

Inching my arms from the sleeves, I toss my white coat across my desk, and I wearily drop on to the couch behind me and lean back, my arms crossing my chest. The stress of the day is still heavy in the strain of my muscles, my bones. But her question, posed in that sardonic, British lilt of hers, instantly lightens the weight of everything. Catching the gaze of her dark amber eyes dancing over my face, a slight frown dipping her full lips, I tilt my head a little. "Am I not smiling enough for you, doctor?" I ask, grinning now, wide, wanting to please her for some irrational reason, to obey her obvious desire for a smile. From me.

Pulling her head back a little, fighting a grin of her own, she points her index finger my way, zeroing in on the tilt of my lips. "Well now you are positively grinning. Cheshire Cat has nothing on you, eh?"

Dropping my head bashfully, then raising my eyes back to hers, I can feel a blush coming on as her eyes travel the planes of my face again, studying me. Looking for something that I hope she finds pleasing. Lasering in on my lips. "Just giving you what you want. Er- asked me for." I stutter, keeping my head angled slightly away as I rub my hand nervously across my neck. Could I be any more transparent? I assume it's obvious that my affection for her lives and breathes in my every moment with her. Why should I even attempt to conceal it any longer?

"Max, it's been a long time since I've seen you smile. Genuinely smile. A smile just for you. The chemo, the radiation, your personal trials-"

"You can say it, Helen. My wife leaving me."

"It's just good to see you happy, like you were when your baby was born. You deserve that kind of joy, simply for what you mean to everyone you've impacted. You change so many lives for the good. I'm- I'm just glad I could help put that smile there." She advances on me. Two short strides bringing her to standing in between my wide stretched legs. Helen gestures to my lips again, one red tipped, manicured finger, just a hair's breadth away from me being able to kiss it. Suck it gently into my mouth. The thought ambles in the forefront of my brain before I get a chance to tuck it away with the rest of my secretly held desires for her.

This time is different though. Something unnamable between Helen and I has changed. After the many early mornings and late nights of chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Of her bringing me back to my empty apartment, to feed me, care for me, make sure I am resting before I charge back to the hospital to change the world. Unable to even change the trajectory of my hopelessly broken marriage. There were so many late nights spent with me witnessing her triumphant return of Helen's emotional investment, and relentless drive back to the profession we both love, that bolsters the brilliance of her mind, and the earnestness of her will to make a difference. Countless days have passed with me listening to the sadness lacing her soft voice as she ruminates about the lack of love in her life, and her dwindling prospects for parenthood. Together we have unwittingly knitted from the remnants of our past lives, a new one together, interwoven with pieces of heartbreak and latent desire for more. For a connection.

I cannot discount that I owe my recovery and my health to this woman, who has asked for nothing in return, no promises I cannot fulfill, no broken vows of forever. No dissatisfied grimaces followed by a retreat to the wealthiest of Connecticut's gated enclaves. With Helen, there has only been the simplicity of an ear to listen, and a broken body that I allow her to heal. Perhaps in this moment, when the air is charged, positively crackling with this unacknowledged energy arching between us, we can both finally admit that this unspoken thing simmering between us, is simply everything.

It's been there for over a year now. Since I walked through the door, full of hubris, and armed with an unflinching desire to fix things. Something. Myself even. Over time maybe even her. The slight melancholy that always swims in the veins, dragging down the spirit found underneath the silky covering of her mocha tinged skin, urging me to make right whatever it is that rides her, bars her from joy. I know what it is. What I can do. What I can give her. Would I dare? Would she ever accept that it doesn't come from the same place my work here at the hospital does? That it's not conditioned by my oath to do no harm, to treat and care for the sick. This desire that pools in my heart for Helen is more urgent than anything I've ever felt. Even my feelings for Georgia.

Leaning up, straightening my back, I'm brushing my thumb across the apple of her cheek, and down, a feathery graze over her lips and chin. "Helen?"

Slowly, almost as though she's in pain, she drops her eyelids, the lashes delicately resting, sweeping in a gentle blink the tears that leak in tiny pulses down from her eyes. "Max?"

"I can make you happy too. If you let me."

"Max…"

"If you let me, I would make us both happy. We can make each other that way."

"You're not ready. Take this gift of remission first. Use it to fix what's already broken."

"I am. I'm ready for this, for you. For remission. To move on. To be happy again. For real this time. If you will let me. You and I are what's broken."

Helen doesn't speak. She doesn't have to. With slender, trembling fingers she reaches for me. It's not foreign to me. Her touch is welcoming, emitting a warmth that has comforted me as she has helped to treat my cancer over the last year. There is a tentative hesitance in the way her skin grazes mine. Haltingly approaching my cheeks as though to cup them, then dashing away, unsure of herself. But I'm not unsure. I've thought of this many days, many nights. Sometimes of nothing else as our friendship has blossomed over the last year. As she watched on as Georgia delivered my child, then summarily snatched her away from me, relegating me to an every other weekend parent.

Helen was there when the dean of the hospital finally, grudgingly, but with a modicum of pride, admitted that the changes I have made here at New Amsterdam have worked. Have positively altered the trajectory of the lives we touch, our own getting better, more fulfilled in correlation. So here we are in my office now, prepared to jump into the abyss of what this could mean for us. How this choice as well, might simply change everything.

Something in me wants to push her to choose me. To move aside the cloud of doubt that hides her feelings from me, to forge ahead and claim her. To pull her smaller form down onto mine, and shield her from her uncertainty. Cloak her in the absolute rightness of us. But I don't.

She's like a deer, a bit skittish. Unsteady even. A colt on new legs, but somewhat eager to rush ahead into the unknown. Instead I turn my head into her restless palm that hovers against my feverish skin, and allow my lips to settle there, placing delicate, encouraging pecks along the life lines that traverse her skin.

"Max, I do want…that."

"Me too, Helen. Me too."


	2. Chapter 2

**Dr. Pathaki**

More than anything, it's the way she looks over at him as his long purposeful strides showcase his approach to where she and I stand apart from the crowd. It's as though a spotlight is following his movement, ensuring that she is aware of him. Despite the possessive and firm grasp of my hand around her lean waist. My thumb strums against the smooth silk of her dress, a soothing cadence that satisfies my desire for her, for now. Until later when we can be alone. But then her eyes arouse with fire, excitement, her posture relaxing at the pending arrival and familiar comfort of seeing her friend, boss, patient…I don't even know what to call him. Dare I even say lust skitters across her features? Animates them in a nearly erotic repose. Lips slightly apart, permitting the smallest gasp of air. Passion perhaps? When he is blocked for a moment, his arrival at her side delayed by the outstretched hand of a possible donor, her posture again betrays her. Stiffens in displeasure. Gaze narrowing, and dimming, dulling with apparent sadness at his delay.

God how I want this interplay of emotion for myself. My greedy heart, gluttonous, jealous, needs her gaze affixed in the same fascination to me. Only me. Her lithe frame taught with anticipation of our coupling, of my hands hovering, grasping, clutching at her curves. I've had it before, her attention, affection, but not like this. Never like this. Not with the same warmth. No…heat. Mere warmth doesn't do this chemistry they share justice. Fire.

I won't give up so easily though, regardless that I can witness how this is actually playing out, and I can only blame myself. I've waited too long to make this permanent. To offer her my full self. So many things I could have controlled, falling to the wayside as I now must watch her adoring stare, perhaps unknowingly, submit itself to another. My hold on her tightens at the mere thought of it. Nausea gripping my stomach in a clench that the expensive champagne I'm consuming is no match for.

Wriggling away from the patron with that affable grace Max is known for, the one that somehow makes even the most miserly of hardened professionals, old money cronies, and death weary doctors, pliable in his presence, he delivers himself to stand in front of Helen. Those round eyes of his ablaze with approval, sweeping her figure in one hungry glare. Consumption is the only way to describe it, and the sickening feeling inside of me doubles twofold.

"Come on, doctor, let's dance." Max commands with a confident smile, staring down at her and offering her his hand, reaching for and gently grasping it. Immediately folding her smaller body into his as he shuffles her under his arm, flanking her side and attempting to quickly direct her away from me. As though an after thought, he quickly throws out a question for me in a distracted manner with what I can only hear as a more authoritative bass to his voice. "You don't mind do you, Dr. Pathaki?" his question more of a statement, his eyes never once leaving her face to even bother averting to me for approval. It's a technicality. The play of light and shadow from the ballroom's festive setting, highlighting the delighted smirk of his lips tells me everything I should know about this moment. About his intentions.

Regardless of whether or not Helen regularly consoles me with her words and her body, laughs off with a dismissive scoff anything romantic between her and Max, this niggling voice in the back of my brain tells me different. Calls me every sort of fool for not acknowledging what I am certain is playing out in front of me. It's not an unrequited love like Ophelia's for Hamlet. Instead I see the glimmer in Max's gaze affixed to her face, and recognize the more romantic of Shakespeare's dramas. He would compare her visage to the most precious of things, the richest jewel to behold, much the same as the besotted adoration of Romeo for his Juliet. Damn.

"Max, maybe not?" Helen places her hand flatly to his chest and swings her head back and forth softly questioning in response to Max's request, even as the corners of her lips, the most alluring of berry colors, the flesh as sweet as any strawberry, tilt up in a sexy smile. Matched with the flirtatious glint sparkling in her eyes, it is as though I am a voyeur, lasciviously peeping in on a love I can only bear witness to.

Furrowing his brow in confusion at her protestation, then relaxing his frown into an almost puppy dog like one of pleading, he softens his gaze on her, relinquishing the bravado for a not so subtle plea. "Just one quick dance. I haven't danced in a long time. Please do me the honor, Helen."

Helen's eyes skip to mine swiftly, as though she has remembered me, then back to Max. "Just a quick one." She declares, accepting his request, but perhaps also as an attempt to soothe the frayed ends of my nerves. She knows how I feel about this…thing between her and Max.

Regardless of her words, the release of her hand from mine, dropping it to limply hang uncared for at my side, this act shows me that Helen is already lost to me. Floating on a heavenly, white cloud, the drape of her silky gown sinfully caresses her dusky form, and delivers her into the waiting circle of Max's arms as he wraps himself tightly around her waist, and dances her away from my side.

He's nearly vibrating with happiness. No. Not happiness. Joy. His eyes are only for her, searingly fixated to her beautiful face. Immediately he drops his bearded face to her ear, his lips almost obscured from my view, nearly sparing me the anguish of witnessing the nip of her lobe he quickly delivers. It's so swift I could have blinked and missed it. I would not blink, though. My fears that the charismatic Dr. Goodwin, and the owner of my heart would simply no longer exist, the heat of their connection burning them to ash.

Blowing out an agitated huff of air, I suck down the last of the golden champagne bubbling in the glass flute gripped tightly in my grasp. A string of curse words streaming like a silent fountain across my lips. An offering to the welling frustration as the tie that binds us is severed from cross the dance floor. The specter of which is too eerie to accept. I drop my head, chin nearly to my chest and momentarily fixate on the shiny cast of my black dress shoes. The reflection of my face on the tops, one that Helen has called devastatingly handsome more than once, stares back at me. Like a fun house mirror, it doesn't resemble the one that Helen claims to adore. Instead it's reflection is twisted in sadness, confusion, anger, and deep inside I know it's distortion has nothing to do with the patent leather's effect of my perception of myself.

I can't bear my own reflection. Instead I focus on the crowd around me, consciously averting my eyes from where they are, hoping for a distraction.

The hospital fundraiser is like so many I've been to before, with its well dressed patrons holding tightly to their purse strings, still waiting like a virgin on prom night to be separated from what they hold so dear. Administrators and doctors swirl in among them, wooing open those same patrons' wallets with stories of medical heroics, and patients in need.

While these functions are all old hat for me, tonight I find myself in a position that is entirely new. The hair cut is new. My hair a little shorter, the dark curls no longer whisping around my ears. Instead I've opted for a cropped cut, swooping the front to the side from a deep part to the left. A cut that Helen likened to the classic good looks of a Carey Grant, to match the timeless elegance of my tuxedo. Which is also new, purchased solely to please Helen on this night that is not only meant to raise money for the hospital, but to celebrate the newfound health of its medical director at the hand of it's director of oncology. Helen.

Tonight I wanted to celebrate her. To feel the warmth of her breath against my lips and face as she compliments my attire, hopefully punctuated with a soft kiss. That is an old feeling. A familiar and cherished one, which causes my right hand to sink into my pants pocket and rub across the stiff velvet covering of the small box. And then my eyes flash across them moving together, and I'm reminded anew of what aggravates me. Causes the fine threads of these expensive clothes to agitate my flesh and my spirit. It's the painful reminder of what is surely to come if I don't do something. It's haunting reminder dancing across the ballroom floor is singeing the edges of my nerves right now. This feeling is…new. It's one that I'm not comfortable with. One that presses against my chest like the weight of the elephant we tell patients to expect when experiencing a heart attack.

The ¾ time of the soft strings carrying a whimsical tune, high and strong across the ballroom floor, provides the lilting soundtrack to their amorous affair. It can only be described as such. How could it be anything else when their bodies move as one? A singular sinuous form. The seductive joining of male and female, two souls combined regardless of the circumstances. Their love no longer obscured by decorum. By my presence. Or even the shadow of a wife Max is now separated from.

"You can see it, too?"

"I'm sorry what's that?"

"The _thing_. Their _thing_."

Turning to my right, I glance down and find the owner of the trembling voice that poses the question that we both know the answer to. Georgia Goodwin.

She's a pretty woman. Studying her with the eyes of a practiced physician, and a man with a healthy respect for the female form, I can easily witness her appeal. Her stiffened posture, shoulders back, the tilted upward jut of her chin, it all speaks to an entitlement, of what the world owes her. The confidence in her stance is alluring. Attractive in the waifish delicateness of her form, in the way that an ex-dancer's form often is. Nimble, though no longer leanly muscled from the daily cadence of rigorous training and performance, it's now thin, willowy, an elegant homage to the graceful movement it still carries. Georgia reminds me of a fairy with her pixie like hair and features, everything about her seeming to indicate that she could fly away, disappear at a whim. Be gone as seamlessly as she has appeared with little fanfare or announcement. Given what Helen has shared about the tempestuous back and forth of Georgia and Max's relationship, I inwardly nod to myself accepting this as a canonical part of her nature.

On a short sniffle, her words push from her thin, red lips, as eerie and prescient as any biblical verse. "Before I left I confronted him about it. It's an impossible situation for us, Dr. Pathaki. We lose."

Shaking out of my perusal of her form, I stubbornly I blurt out the words that immediately erupt from my heart at her declaration, "No. Not me. I don't lose. Helen is mine."

"You will. She's not. Not anymore."

"You don't know that."

"I do. And so do you."

Turning to her, facing my body fully towards hers to convey the seriousness of my claim, I muster the confidence that I don't entirely believe in, but hope putting its energy into the world will make it so. "I have a ring in my pocket that says otherwise, Mrs. Goodwin." I say, steadying the timber of my deep voice, needing Georgia to believe in it. Someone to accept that I win. To recognize how close I am to having her. To giving Helen what she wants, needs.

"I feel sorry for you then." Laughing for a moment, a soft twinkle that nervously dies on her lips before it can gain any true steam, Georgia gives me the gift of her soft, pitying gaze. "It's the reason I left. And the reason I'm back. He can't see me any longer. Not the way he once did. As a lover. As his wife. Not just the mother of his child. Such a clean, clinical way of neatly categorizing me in his life." Swinging her eyes towards the dance floor, glancing sideways to draw my attention to where Max and Helen continue to move together past their 'just one dance'. "But not in his heart. Not like her."

"Then why are you here?"

"Because I'm a fool. I thought maybe if I came back he would remember me. He would see me here, dressed up. He would remember me as more than a mother. As a woman. The woman he loves. Who loves him. But…look at them, Dr. Really…look."

I do. And sense the sting to witnessing how Helen and Max continue to hold closely to each other, their bodies straining to be impossibly closer. No longer even attempting a waltz, they are simply swaying. Staring at each other. Max's tall body is hunched to cover hers. Both of his arms hold her smaller form, cocooning her in his embrace as his palms rest against her. One flat to her back. One dangerously close to resting covetously over the slight curve of her bottom. Helen, in kind, simply hugs him to her as though she has discovered a most treasured thing.

Realization again wounds me as I recognize that to them, given their outward display of affection for each other, they are the only ones in the room at this point. The sting of which freezes me until Georgia's small hand swipes down the sleeve of the ink black tuxedo jacket, a pitying consolation, condolences for my loss.

"It is their destiny. It's there. I know it is. I feel it. My soul senses the loss of our connection. I came here tonight on a fool's errand. And now…" Wavering, the slightest bit of a whisper is all that's left of her as she mumbles on her departure. "I see it…"


End file.
